h a l f b a k e r yIncidentally, why isn't "spacecraft" another word for "interior design"?
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Inspired by [Flying Toaster]'s Demon Fridge I thought that instead
of coming up with a material that lets infrared radiation pass out,
but not in, why not build a lobster-trap-inspired fridge out of
mirrors? A quick Google search found that some gents at MIT in
1998 created a cheap, dielectric
mirror which very effectively
reflects (refrectively?) infrared radiation. [link] Fifteen years
later MIT announce another perfect mirror which is an
enhancement of the first one I believe (more perfect perhaps?)
[link]
Build a box shaped fridge lined with dielectric mirrors adding
reflective parabolic cones extruding out the ends. (Normally
lobster traps have the cones intruding into the trap to make it
easy for the creatures to find their way in but hard to get out - we
want the opposite effect here.)
The light and infrared radiation rapidly bounces around inside the
Lobster Trap Fridge until the photons strike the parabolic cones
which line the little buggers up and eject them through the hole
in the opposing cone. Heat energy leaves but has a hard time
coming back into the unit. Insulate with whatever you have handy
that is effective and cheap.
1998 MIT Perfect Mirror - including for Infrared
http://www.nytimes....gewanted=all&src=pm [AusCan531, Sep 21 2013]
2013 MIT Perfecter Mirror
http://www.extremet...irst-perfect-mirror [AusCan531, Sep 21 2013]
<ahem>
Maxwell_27s_20Demon_20Refrigerator [FlyingToaster, Sep 21 2013]
Maxwell's Demon Refrigerator
Maxwell_27s_20Demon_20Refrigerator Sorry [FT] for incorrect attribution in my first draft. [AusCan531, Sep 21 2013, last modified Sep 22 2013]
Discussion about focussing heat plus a new word 'phonons'
http://web.mit.edu/...ike-light-0111.html Shows that heat can be focused. [AusCan531, Sep 22 2013]
Speaking of Lobsters....
http://xkcd.com/1268/ [AusCan531, Sep 23 2013]
Speaking of Lobsters....
https://www.youtube...watch?v=QadhPRU0Dn8 [normzone, Sep 29 2013]
[link]
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Oh my god! Its full of lobsters |
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Thank god! Its full of lobsters |
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For the record, Maxwell's Demon Refrigerator was
not my idea, though I wish it had been. |
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What good is a deep-frozen lobster ? You have to thaw it and then cook it before it's edible ... |
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Freezing lobster meat ruins it. For that matter, so does
boiling it or any if the other awful things people do to
lobster in the name of cuisine. The only proper way to cook
lobster is by steaming it, preferably over hot firepit stones
covered with a bed of fresh seaweed and mussels. I can't
stand bivalves myself, but a mussel-steamed softshell is a
meal fit for a king. So I beg of the world, stop abusing the
lobsters we send you by cooking them with inferior
methods or adulterating them with other ingredients. Do
the right thing and steam them bugs. |
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If one could genetically modify the lobster to have a
layer of frequency-doubling crystals under its
carapace, and make the carapace appropriately
transparent, one would produce a self-refrigerating
lobster, which would be much less unsatisfactory. |
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I gave my glow-in-the-dark lobster to a woman on the east coast to give to her husband - they had an in joke that required one and she was unable to locate one - the only source she could find was me commenting on the 'bakery that I had one. |
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She contacted me and offered to buy it, I was unable to locate it, a year later I found it and gifted her with it. |
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Oh yeah, what was the idea again? |
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[bigsleep], you are correct. The previous time was in 2010. Looks like I'm on schedule to tell it again in 2016. |
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Is your user name from the Phillip Marlowe novel? |
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What is a glow-in-the-dark lobster and how can you misplace one ? |
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Image searches fail me at the moment, but all you have to do is push it far enough under the bed. |
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While I'm pretty sure that my little heat-expelling box
wouldn't actually freeze the lobsters or anything else one
kept inside it, I wonder if they'd be chilled a bit. On the
face of it, a chilling effect should occur, but my intuition
says the box would just sit there looking at me while
staying exactly at room temperature. |
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After having a read of my last link discussing phonons I'd be
interested in hearing what some of you smart guys
[spidermother et al] think about the concept. I note that
one other commenter on this article also proposed usng this
property for refrigeration. |
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I suspect that the researchers, or at least the journalists,
are using the phrase 'perfect mirror' a bit too glibly.
Otherwise one could close up the box during the day then
release the light at nighttime. |
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It is possible to use one-way heat flow to keep things cool, but not quite in the way that commenter suggests. Cellars, for example, allow air to flow only when it's colder out than in; the cellar thus stays closer to the lowest outdoor temperature than to the average outdoor temperature. |
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High-tech heat diodes should do the same - a box or building in a desert (cold nights, hot days) could be kept cool. But it won't work to make ice in the tropics. Allowing heat to flow in one direction only doesn't mean heat will flow uphill. |
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//Allowing heat to flow in one direction only doesn't mean heat will flow uphill// |
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But the light energy would mostly all find its way out compared to the little bit finding its way in through the 2 small openings. |
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Wow, [AusCan531], I just finished reading that comic. You are quick. |
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I subscribe to Terry Pratchett's theory of fine cuisine, which
is that it exists wherever people have nothing to eat, so
they drag the delta, peek under rocks, peel the bark from
trees, and make a delicious meal from what is basically,
when you get right down to it, garbage. |
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That is how things like lobster became delicacies. |
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Yeah, I have a good friend, my freediving mentor, who grew up on Catalina Island. When it was off-season for tourists, there was no money for food, and you ate what you could pull from the shallows. He still loves lobster, but he described being sick of it as a kid because that was all there was to eat. |
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American history indicates that it was poor peoples food for a long time - and I wonder who was hungry enough to eat oysters. |
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